Few would have been surprised if Cyndi Lauper had entered the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame during her first year of eligibility back in 2008. After all, she’s one of the most successful artists of the Eighties, and songs like “Time After Time,” “True Colors,” and “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” have enjoyed stunning staying power. The video for “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” has racked up 1.5 billion plays on YouTube; the song itself 1.4 billion plays on Spotify. (And that’s not even getting into the juggernaut of Kinky Boots.)
Yet for some reason, it took Lauper 17 years and three ballots to finally earn her rightful place in the Hall of Fame. We connected with her on Zoom to chat about the honor, in between her Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell Tour dates and her preparations for the upcoming musical Working Girl.
Are you surprised by your induction? Is it something you hoped would happen?
I didn’t know what to think. But you know me, I was thinking about what I’m doing at the moment. And if accolades come, they come. That said, I still think rock & roll can save the world, and so you never stop moving forward and trying to help out, since I am in the field of humanities anyway.
I do appreciate the fact that all the women actually voted for me, and they were a lot, and that’s humbling. You just hope you can live up to their expectations.
How did you find out?
My manager told me. Then I thought about all of the women who were inducted before me, and all the shoulders that I stand on, but all the women coming up who stand on my shoulders. It’s wonderful to be part of that legacy.
They didn’t bring in Cher until last year. Tina Turner didn’t get in without Ike until right before she died. That just baffles me.
Well, in the beginning, who was doing the voting?
Very good point. It was primarily men.
As more women become involved, of course they’re going to…I just think for me, you knock on a door and it depends on what you want. If you keep knocking, eventually that door opens. I think if you persist, you prevail.
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It’s a pretty diverse class this year with you, Chubby Checker, Bad Company, the White Stripes, Salt-N-Pepa, Outkast, Soundgarden. Are you fans of any of them?
Yeah. I got to sing with one of the guys from OutKast at one of the Home for the Holidays shows in Los Angeles. It was awesome. And with Bad Company, my first gig as a lead singer, not a background singer, was singing one of their songs.
I always wanted to be a background singer, like Merry Clayton. I just loved Merry Clayton growing up. I started to feel like background singers had more freedom than lead singers because you could get to really sing high. It was cool in the background.
And then because I wasn’t good at dancing in platforms, and I used to fall a lot…that helped me learn how to talk to the audience, because if you fall, you gotta say something. I got the job to be the lead singer because the manager said, “Look, you see that girl in the back who can’t dance, but sings really good? Just make her the lead singer.” That’s what happened. I sang a Free song and a Bad Company song.
It’s a real full circle moment for you.
Yeah. It was at the Boardy Barn in front of 5,000 nickel beer-drinking folks in the Hamptons. I remember being terrified. But as soon as I started swinging that tambourine to the rhythm and singing, that was it. I stepped off the platform, and I was the lead singer.
I’m excited about Salt-N-Pepa because they also did Home for the Holidays. I got to sing Spinderella’s rap in “What a Man.” I was so excited to do that because when Salt-N-Pepa first came out, I was still on the hamster wheel. I didn’t have a lot of time to listen and get into it. But they were so much fun. They were kind of like the me of hip-hop.
I hate when people complain about hip-hop being in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Yeah. It’s bullshit. It is rock & roll. When rock & roll first came out, people like Chuck Berry and Little Richard changed everything. It was a new thing. When hip-hop started, it was also a new thing. That was again rock & roll. It was changing the world. It was changing the sound of music. And whether they were taking our hooks and putting it into their rhythm and changing what they were doing, it inspired me even in the Nineties when I did Hat Full of Stars, to take the rhythm and put it into the hooks.
I think rock & roll changes the world. And so if a rhythm comes along and changes the world, it’s rock & roll, baby.
I couldn’t agree more. Now, there tends to be a big jam session at the end of the night. Can you imagine singing alongside a big group of your fellow inductees?
As long as I get to sing with Salt-N-Pepa, I’ll be okay. And Paul Rodgers actually.
Chubby Checker should have been in a long time ago. But, once again, he’s a person of color. And we stand on the shoulders of the African-American community that gave us a rhythm, mixed in with a Native American rhythm, and is truly how the rhythm of rock & roll started in the first place.
If you watch a Big Mama Thornton television performance of “Hound Dog,” which spent weeks on the top of the charts before Elvis covered it, and you hear the drums, that’s rock & roll, baby. Don’t tell me it ain’t. And there’s Big Mama in a bucket hat. She was a bad motherfucker.
Are you thinking yet about who might induct you?
First of all, I’m not allowed to tell you. Second of all, actually, no. The person would have to have a free schedule, and want to do it. I guess I should make a list. I just got back from Japan. I’ve been busy doing my farewell tour.
I was at the MSG show. It was amazing.
Oh my God. I invited everybody. And I knew if I suck, it was going to be on me because I had everybody come. I had to tell myself, “Okay, okay. Just stop. You don’t have a Superman cape. Be you who are, put your best foot forward, and go.” That’s what you have to do.
I always say, “Well, what does Mick Jagger say to himself?” I don’t know. I never asked him. But in my mind, I did want to have a Superman or Superwoman cape. Wonder Woman, right? I didn’t have the belt. It wouldn’t work. I just had to be me.
It was wonderful when Sam Smith came out and the two of you played together.
Wasn’t that something! Didn’t he look so great. I know he loves “Time After Time” because he was doing it during Covid. And then I did a thing with him after that because he was so sweet, so cute. And he was like, “Let’s do this.”
Artists usually perform three songs when they get in. Any idea which ones you might sing?
I know one song. I want to have a super girl band backing me for “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” And I don’t mean just singing girls, but a band of motherfuckin’ players who could kick ass. That will be so awesome. And then it’s really “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” at least how I hear it.
The timing is pretty great since you wrap up your farewell tour just a couple of months earlier.
On top of that, Working Girl opens up the next night in La Jolla. It doesn’t really stop.
How is that going?
I’m almost done. I have three songs, and three re-writes. They’re mostly easy to move around. One will be challenging. But if it works, it’ll be great. I have to get it done by June. But hey, it’ll be okay.
After this year, might you still do one-off gigs, festivals, residencies? Are you still open to doing shows?
I would do a show that I don’t have to move around all the time, packing and unpacking, trying to make a plane. Doing that again would kill me. But doing a little show where I could bring the art and music together, something that’s a step forward, that’s an exciting prospect for me.
After Working Girl, there’s another project I want to get done. You only have a certain amount of time in your life. I want to be able to do it, and do a really good job. And I want to be proud of my singing. And it’s live. Everything is live. I think it’s important if it’s live, that it’s live. In live, you never know exactly what’s going to happen. You have to be in time to the visuals, but you don’t have to sing it the same way every night. Sometimes I consciously change it just to find a new thing, a tiny bit, not to freak everyone out, but to make it live.
What do you think it’ll feel like to stand at the podium on Hall of Fame night and realize that you’re entering the same club as the Beatles and the Stones and Joni Mitchell?
If you remember, they didn’t have Joni Mitchell in there right away either. And the same with Joan Baez, who actually did change things in the world. She introduced me to Bob Dylan. I never would have ever, ever heard him without hearing her first. I was very young.
I even went to the first woman’s demonstration. I burnt my training bra. It wasn’t just for me, but for my mother and grandmother. I wanted to break the lineage of oppression.
I realized that music can change the world. And rock & roll has always been saving the world. Look at what happened with Live Aid. I think the first thing I would want to remind all of the community is not just thank you, but please remember that our music can and has changed the world. It has contributed to the world to make it better. You can’t forget that we are a community of people who can make a difference, and should always remember to make a difference.
From Rolling Stone US
